


Not In Blood But In Bond

by ArvenaPeredhel



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21940675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArvenaPeredhel/pseuds/ArvenaPeredhel
Summary: The twins don’t intend to like their father’s new ward. Fate has other plans.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 56





	Not In Blood But In Bond

The boy is three, when he comes into their lives, and they have long since ceased to count their years. The story is familiar, and lived countless times before - orcs, and poisoned arrows, a slain father and a child near to death - and it is easy to forget who they are, who they have become. They are not kind anymore, but it is a mask they can assume when it suits them. And his father is dead, and they cannot help but be sympathetic. So they bring him and his mother to their home, and it has been ten years since they last crossed through the wards, and their own father is glad to see them, and the sentiment is not returned.

They are fey, and feral, laughing only at the slaughter, singing only on the hunt. They speak little, save to each other, and even that is mind-to-mind. They have become more fluent at  _ ósanwë-kenta  _ than any they have known before, and there are times when they wake that they do not know whose mind is in each body. They know this story, they have seen it time and time again. The child and his mother will live in safety, in peace, in shelter. Their mortal cousins have sent their sons to the valley for hundreds of years, after all, to learn history and medicine and the arts of war. Sons and mothers and sons and mothers in a more or less unbroken chain, living together until the boy comes to manhood and leaves to assume his place as chieftain - yes, this is how it must be, how it will be. They have watched dozens of Dúnedain live, from childhood to old age and finally death. This will be no different.

And then, horror of horrors, it  _ is  _ different.

When they next come home, the boy is there, and he sits at their father’s table, in their sister’s place. He speaks Sindarin with no trace of an accent, and when they shift to Westron for the sake of practice he sounds like any elfling born and raised in the bounds of Imladris, stumbling over harsh Zs and Rs and Bs. He is pale-eyed and dark-haired, and he calls their father  _ Ada _ . 

They look at one another first, when the shock settles in and they know they have not lost themselves in some illusion or madness. Their eyes are sharp, sharper than their tongues, sharper than their swords.  _ Does he know what he does?  _ they ask.  _ Does he know that this cannot replace her? Does he mean to try?  _

“I’m Estel,” he says, trying to make conversation; they do not answer, instead flicking glances like daggers at their father, at the empty chair to his right. This will not erase his crimes. Nothing can.

They stay the night, though they do not intend to. By the time they can think of leaving, the fires have burned to embers and they are deep in their cups; they stumble to their beds and sleep off the worst of their stupor. It is before dawn when they rise, as is their custom; as the sky begins to turn rosy-gold, they dress in unison and in silence and make their way to the practice courts. Somehow, the boy finds his way to where they fight, and he watches them, drinking in every twist and leap and thrust.

“Teach me how to do that!” he cries, after one of them has fallen and the other has nearly sliced his arm to the bone. They disentangle, and get to their feet, and frown at one another.

_ I cannot, _ the one who made the final cut answers, and when he realizes the boy has not heard him he sighs and seeks out the words to use instead. This will be difficult. It will mean remembering names, placing smiles and quick fingers and sardonic wit back in the bodies they rightfully belong to. But the boy is staring up at him after darting into the dust, and he cannot refuse, and he sighs again.

“I cannot teach you to do that,” he says truthfully. They fight to win, not for sport, not for show, and the only reason they are not dead is because to kill one would be to kill both. Nothing is off-limits, and no trick is too dirty to be tried. 

“You can try!” the boy answers indignantly. “I’m old enough to learn! Glorfindel says so!”

“Is that so?” his brother answers, and it occurs to him for the first time in uncounted years that the  _ ellon _ behind him is named Elrohir, and is bleeding from the arm where his sword tore through linen and leather. “How old are you?”

“Seven,” he says. “That’s old enough for a sword.” He speaks as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.

Elrohir laughs. “I was thirty-five when I got my first sword,” he says. “It was just a practice blade, but it was good enough to learn on.”

“No,” the other -  _ Elladan? Yes. Elladan. _ \- says, and there is low exasperation rising on his end of their omnipresent mental back-and-forth.

“He has to start sometime,” Elrohir replies. “Orcs don’t care how old you are.” 

“Fine,” Elladan acquiesces, throwing up his hands. “Fine, you can teach him.”  _ And  _ only  _ you, _ he adds, and his brother ignores him, and he groans.

“Hey, he’s bleeding,” Estel says, pointing at Elrohir’s arm stained red. 

“I know,” both  _ ellyn _ answer in unison. They had each felt the pain, and each ignored it, passing it off to one another until it belonged to no one.

“You should say sorry,” the boy presses, looking at Elladan. “You hurt him, and you should say sorry when you do that.”

A pause, and a confused glance, and a moment of  _ what does he mean? why does he think that? what is - ?  _ And then Elladan makes a face, and shrugs, and glances over his shoulder at his brother.

“I’m sorry,” he says hollowly, unsure what he’s supposed to be sorry  _ for _ .

It takes some time, but soon enough Elrohir finds his practice blade buried in the armory’s back room. They spend the morning, and then the afternoon, and then the evening, with the boy, and at day’s end they track mud and dirt into the kitchen and sit perched on stools eating cold stew. Estel has not stopped talking, and neither of them can find it in their hearts to ask him to be silent. Their father says nothing, when he finds them fielding questions about ancient battles and long-lost glories, but there is a light in his eyes that was not there before.

When next they come home, Estel is nine, and he has discovered puns. He speaks Westron as well as they do now, and Adûnaic and Taliska and Quenya besides, and he delights in hidden meanings and double entendres, and he is almost as quiet as they are when it comes to slipping from shadow to shadow. Elrohir finds that he and his brother do not shut themselves out, when he is there; they are ever-present at one another's backs but they use  _ words _ and  _ manners,  _ and since their last visit they have not forgotten which hands and feet and head belong to each name. 

They stay for two weeks, riding and fishing and hunting, and Estel spends several nights under the stars and learns to clean a trout and learns several words in Adûnaic that his father did  _ not _ teach him, and the twins  _ (we  _ are  _ twins, and not one soul stretched out into two bodies, aren’t we?) _ find that suddenly they can smile again,  _ do  _ smile again. They are even embarrassed, when Estel drops a volume of First Age history on his foot in the library and makes use of the words they taught him; their father is bright-eyed and silent, though they swear he is laughing at them behind the unshakable calm.

The next time, he is eleven, and he is growing so  _ fast  _ it is not  _ fair,  _ to suddenly be keenly aware of the clock running down. They have a century, perhaps two,  _ maybe  _ three if they are  _ very  _ blessed, and then - 

Well, and  _ then. _

The three of them are in the woods near the roots of the hills that pile about Imladris on either side, and it is a hunting trip meant to teach Estel to bring down a hart in one shot through the eye. They are far from home, though still protected by the long patrols, and so when Estel falls out of a tree and breaks his arm in three places it cannot be easily mended.

Neither of them expects the fierce, protective glow that flares to life in chest and  _ fëa.  _ When he falls, and cries out, and his face is deathly white and he is shivering, they do not think, they only act, and pick him up from the leaves and the dirt and set his bones and wrap the arm in cloth cut from their own cloaks. 

“It will be all right,” Elrohir soothes. “I’ve broken my own arms many times.”

“And Ada is the best healer in all Arda,” Elladan adds, and his voice is calm, and his eyes are soft. “He’ll set you to rights.”

He weeps, and shivers, and cries out every time he is jostled on the ride home, and somewhere between their abandoned camp and the bridge over the river they realize that they care very much what happens to him. Neither of them say the word, though it rises in their thoughts, and when he is at last asleep on the cot in their father’s private study, his arm bound in plaster, they share a knowing look, and see that their hearts are already thawed.

When Estel is fifteen, they apologize.

“We are sorry, Adar,” Elrohir says, and Elladan comes behind him with “We were wrong, and cruel, and harsh, and there is no excuse.”

“No,” Elrond agrees, “there isn’t; nonetheless, it is done, and I forgive you.” His eyes hold the promise of more words to come, but for now, they are dismissed. 

They are shamed by his amity, and file out from his study contrite and confused, and then there is no more time to be anything save joyful, for Estel was not told of their arrival and he is delighted to see them, and there are embraces to share and private jokes to be remembered, and before aught else can happen the three of them tumble out the back door and into the practice ring. Estel has been training with Glorfindel, and they can tell; he’s not quite good enough to beat them, but he will be close someday. They can read that future in his stance, his steps, his form. For now, however, he can be disarmed in a heartbeat, distracted with an ancient piece of wordplay; they’re laughing so hard they can barely breathe after only half an hour of friendly sparring.

Family is a funny thing, they decide, creeping up on you unnoticed. But that, somehow, is enough, and that night when their father looks up at the stars and searches for something only he seems to know, there is a smile on his face. 


End file.
